


disconcerting

by ignitesthestars



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, Injury, Pre-Relationship, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 07:03:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10759185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignitesthestars/pseuds/ignitesthestars
Summary: Evfra is bleeding.For only being three words long, the thought sure is the sneeze that causes an avalanche in Sara’s brain. One -holy shit that looks bad.Two -medigel works on angara, right? Where’s Jaal when you need him?Three-Did he take that instead of me?





	disconcerting

Evfra is bleeding.

For only being three words long, the thought sure is the sneeze that causes an avalanche in Sara’s brain. One - _holy shit that looks bad_. Two - _medigel works on angara, right? Where’s Jaal when you need him?_ Three-

_Did he take that instead of me?_

Evfra is a brutal fighter when he has the freedom for it. She’s seen him snipe a target from truly breathtaking distances if the mission requires it, but she still remembers the gleam in his eyes in the split-second before the kett had ambushed them.

It resonates. She’d charged into battle with the same wild ferocity she always wielded, and he had joined her in the middle of the fray, slaughtering kett with the same terrifying efficiency he did everything. Including taking hits for her, apparently. Sara’s brain rocks back to reality as he stumbles, and she moves quickly to stabilise him, sliding under one of his arms.

“Heyheyhey, I’ve got you,” she says, except he’s _of course_ refusing to rest his weight on her. That earns him a scowl, which gets her a blank look in return, because it’s just her luck to be saddled with the one angara in the universe allergic to sharing his feelings.

“I do not,” he growls, “require your assistance, Pathfinder.”

“Yeah, yeah, tell me again when you haven’t just had your back torn open.” She squints up at him as they stagger their way back to the relative shelter of the Nomad, before straight up kicking him in the shin. He grunts, sags for a second, and then gives her a look that’s somewhere between rolling his eyes and tearing her head off.

But he lets her lead him to the Nomad, so Sara’s going to consider this one a win.

She raises her voice for a second. “Vetra? Watch our backs, would you? We don’t seem to be that great at doing it ourselves.”

“Already on it,” the turian’s dry tones report back. 

Evfra’s eyes flicker after her, return to Sara. They’re disconcertingly blue, and _wow_ , now is definitely not the time to be thinking about that.

“You trust your team,” he says.

She lowers him to the ground, thanking her dubious parking skills for landing them next to one of the heat lamps the kett had set up. Warmth and cover, a good first start. And, her memory pings, Jaal has definitely used medigel before. Sara fumbles for some of her supply. Good step two.

“With my life,” she says. “Look, I’m not a doctor, but I’ve got medigel and steady hands that are going to reach this wound of yours a lot easier than yours are. Will you let me deal with it?”

He looks at her for so long that she starts to wonder if the translators have borked. She opens her mouth to repeat it, but he makes some kind of noise in the back of his throat, shaking his head. Frustration, she realises, although if it’s for her or himself she can’t tell.

“In this, at least, I’ll trust you.”

“Thanks,” she mutters,, crouching behind him. The round ripped through his armour when his shields were nearly depleted, and weeps a sluggish blue. Ugly to look at, but Sara’s just grateful not to be using words like _pouring_ or _gushing._

Honestly, she should probably have him removed the armour for this, but they’re still in uncertain territory, and...on Voeld. Heat lamp or not, it’s fucking freezing.

“You underestimate the importance of the angaran Resistance leader presenting an alien with his back,” he says flatly. 

“I kind of thought our relationship had moved beyond that. I’m applying medigel,” she warns, not wanting to surprise a guy who just announced she’s lucky to be helping him at all. “Come on, Evfra. What do I have to do to prove I’m not here to hurt you?” A beat. “Or - or the rest of the angara.”

“I trust your intentions.” He doesn’t move other than breathing as she applies the medigel, sort of...awkwardly poking it to cover the worst parts of the wound, working around the cracked armour. “I even trust your skill. And I trust that you will do everything in your power to keep your people safe. The same as I would.”

Sara’s hands still, pressed flat to his back. She can feel the faintest rise and fall of his torso and - and the smallest tremble running through his form. Not bioelectricity, something else. _Your people._ Her mind flashes to the _Tempest_ first, of course, but the Initiative is hard on its heels. The angara are allies - _close_ allies, and Sara thinks that Evfra knows she’d do her damnedest to keep them safe in almost any situation imaginable.

Unless.

She draws in a gulp of icy air, the next best thing to just beating her head against the side of the Nomad. It would be nice, Sara thinks, if one thing in her life could be simple. Just one thing.

“So what does that make me?” she asks, immediately inserting her foot into her mouth instead. Classic Ryder. “Because last I checked, that hit was coming right for me.”

She watches helplessly as his shoulders stiffen, and then he’s twisting, unfolding until he towers over her. Sara remains cross-legged on the ground, eyeing her goop covered fingers and determinedly pretending like she hadn’t just insinuated she _meant_ something to the head of the Resistance. _Strategy_ , she expects him to say. Or, _politics. The last thing I need to deal with is your people making a fuss about the death of the human Pathfinder_.

Except it seems that Evfra is subject to the same sentiments as the rest of the angara when it comes it emotion, if in his own taciturn way. What she gets instead is a hand in her face, and a gruff - very gruff--

“You are important.”

There’s a hideous sort of intimacy to the admission, coming from a man who had so brusquely explained the death of his family to her. 

“Oh,” she says unsteadily. He’s the injured one, but she allows him to pull her to her feet. She stumbles a little because she’s Sara Ryder, free hand flying up to steady herself against his chest. “Right.”

His eyes are _really blue_. Alien, and all too recognisable at the same time. He fails to let go of her hand, and she fails to move hers from his chest. That fine tremor, she notes dizzily, slowly eases out of him. Like he’s become more certain of something, in this breathless moment between them.

“Incoming!” Vetra calls, and the sound of gunfire snaps Sara right back into Pathfinder mode.

“Get down!” she barks at Evfra, reaching for for her shotgun and forgetting everything about who and what he is at the same time.

His lips peel back from his teeth in an expression that might be a smirk, or might be a snarl, and if there were less kett incoming, Sara might find either option kind of (very) interesting.

“You must be joking,” he says, shields flickering to life around his form. 

“ _Ugh_ ,” Sara says back, summoning her biotics and Charging the enemy in lieu of dealing with him and the riot of feelings the man stirs in her.

It’s probably the first time in the history of Andromeda that anyone has ever been glad of the kett for a rescue.


End file.
